Assisted living center rezoning OK’d

A proposed new assisted living complex for the elderly cleared an early hurdle Monday with the Eudora City Council's approval of a rezoning of 5 acres on White Dog Road.

The approval changed the zoning on the property east of Church Street and south of Kansas Highway 10 from one allowing residential town homes to one permitting residential elderly.

Joel Fritzel of Clearwater LLC applied for the change and plans to work with Land Source Assisted Living to build a 36- to 40-unit assisted living facility.

The parcel of land is adjacent to property that will become Lawrence Memorial Hospital's health campus.

Eudora City Administrator Cheryl Beatty said the facility would do more than just help build a much-needed business tax base in Eudora.

"It also will serve as a residential need because it will be inexpensive assisted living for the elderly," she said. "It will be a real plus for Eudora."

On Nov. 7, the application won the Eudora Planning Commission 's recommendation for approval with the contingency that if adjustments were made to White Dog Road, they would not reduce the size of frontage properties.

Eudora City Attorney David Waters advised against approving the rezoning with that contingency because if White Dog Road were to be widened, it would cause the property to be out of compliance with zoning rules and the city would potentially be at fault.

Waters further stated that Kansas state statute allowed that a governing body can override a planning commission's contingency with a two-thirds majority vote, with the mayor only voting in order to break a tie.

The council needed four out of five votes to override the planning commission's contingency. However, only three of five council members -- Maria Nelson, Lori Fritzel and Jeff Peterson -- were present at Monday's meeting. Councilman Fred Stewart, who was sick, was called to the meeting to provide a fourth vote, allowing the rezoning to be approved.

The planning commission is scheduled to consider an application for a preliminary plat and site plan for the assisted living facility Dec. 5.

Those documents will outline Clearwater and Land Source Assisted Living's plans and will examine the facility's impact on Eudora's infrastructure.

In other business, the council:

Approved an ordinance establishing a separate account for donations to Eudora Emergency Medical Services and Eudora Fire Department. Beatty said the move would make for cleaner bookkeeping of donations to the departments.

Approved a request that volunteer EMS personnel be paid $10 for attending meetings, training sessions and work detail beginning in 2008.

Douglas County implemented a pay change in November that resulted EMS volunteers being paid the same amount for emergency calls as city firefighters. The county is not paying EMS volunteers for attending meetings, training sessions and work detail assignments. However, firefighters are paid for these activities.

Fire Chief Randy Yates wanted to create equitability within the department. The total cost to the city will be approximately $5,400 per month.

Approved the disposal of broken, destroyed or out of date equipment by the Eudora Fire Department.